The pharmacy process, that is, the process that takes place from the time a physician prescribes a medication for a patient to the time when that patient is administered the medication, involves a number of processing steps. For instance, in an in-patient situation, the prescription is received by the pharmacy, the pharmacy reviews the prescription and appropriately dispenses the medication, an authorized individual either retrieves the medication from the pharmacy or an authorized individual from the pharmacy delivers the medication, typically to a nursing station, and a nurse (or other authorized individual) then delivers the medication to the patient. At each step in the process, the timing, identity, and dosage of the medication being delivered must be matched with the medical records associated with the receiving patient in order to ensure the correct medication is being delivered to the appropriate patient at the appropriate time.
A number of different types of automation are currently available to aid pharmacists, physicians, nurses, and other authorized medication-dispensing personnel in ensuring adequate safety in the pharmacy process. For instance, at the pharmacy level, once a valid prescription has been received from a prescribing physician, many pharmacies utilize some form of centralized dispensing device to fill the prescription. Such centralized dispensing devices are available in many different forms from robotics-driven devices which physically pick up a particular medication from a specified location on a pharmacy shelf and place it into a medication bin, a patient-specific container, or the like, to devices which provide electronic instruction to a human user regarding the location on a pharmacy shelf from which a particular medication may be retrieved. The medications, once retrieved, may be delivered directly from the pharmacist to the patient, as is typically the case when medications are being dispensed from an out-patient pharmacy, or, if the patient is in an in-patient setting, may be delivered to a nurse or nursing station for subsequent delivery to the patient for whom the medication was prescribed.
A second form of automation often utilized in the pharmacy process is a unit-based dispensing cabinet. While these cabinets also come in a variety of forms, the basic premise is that an authorized individual inputs information into the unit and medications, which have been loaded into the cabinet from the pharmacy, are dispensed accordingly. For instance, the cabinet may have stored therein a medication profile for a particular patient such that when the patient's medical record number is input, it automatically dispenses the medication that patient is scheduled to be administered taking into account the time of day, length of time since the last dispensing request was made, and the like. Dispensing may also take a variety of forms ranging from dispensing all necessary medications into a patient-specific bin for the nurse to then remove from the unit and deliver to the patient bedside, to unlocking one or more drawers in which the appropriate medications are located while any drawers containing medications that are not due to be administered to the patient remain locked. The authorized individual may then remove the medication from the unlocked drawer(s), place it in the delivery container of their choice, and deliver it to the patient bedside.
The types of automation hereinabove described can be very expensive for pharmacies and hospitals to purchase and maintain. This is particularly true with regard to unit-based cabinets which are often present at each nursing station throughout a medical facility. Therefore, a system and method which is less expensive to implement and yet still preserves appropriate safety checks in the dispensing process would be desirable. Additionally, a system and method for dispensing medication from a pharmacy and/or delivering medication to a patient which requires fewer processing steps than the prior alternatives would be advantageous.